To Repent
by KChasm
Summary: Drowning in sin, he met... :oneshot:


He sat there, huddled in the corner of the phonebooth, cold but too tired to shiver

**A/N: **Higurashi no Naku Koro ni was produced by 07th Expansion.

o o o

_He sat there, huddled in the corner of the phonebooth, cold but too tired to shiver. And as the blood ran down the length of his arm, he--_

He was dead.

He'd gotten out of bed, gotten ready for school with that one certainty ringing in his head, hearing nothing that his mother and father said to him as he'd left the house, his eyes only seeing those terrible scenes superimposed upon the sunny landscape.

The memories floated behind his eyes, blurry and indistinct, like a dream--but he could remember clearly the terror that had accompanied it. The feeling of inevitability, as his limbs had begun to weaken and he'd slid down against the phonebooth's glass walls. Something warm, running over his hands. Blood. Blood--

His hands were covered with blood.

He screamed and recoiled backwards--as if that action could take him further away from his own limbs--stumbling as he lost his footing among the dirt and dust, finally coming to a painful rest sprawled across the country road with his eyes clenched shut.

He stayed that way, even when the pain subsided, afraid of what he might see. Ten minutes with nothing but the gravel beneath him and irreverent birdsong in his ears. Finally, he dared open his eyes, squinting fearfully towards his calloused hands.

Blood.

His stomach lurched and his heart seemed to freeze in his chest before he understood. It was only a little blood. Not the amount that would come of--but better not to think about that and focus on that one fact: it was only a little blood. He'd skinned his palms when he'd fallen.

He'd only skinned his palms.

Laughter bubbled up from within: relieved, hysterical laughter that sounded insane even to his ears.

It was okay. It was all okay! He'd only skinned his palms--!

He was late, of course, when he finally made it too the schoolhouse, but he was much too cheerful to care (_only skinned my palms_, he murmured--sang to himself over and over. _Only skinned my palms, after all--only skinned my palms_).

He could hear the usual excited mumblings from the classroom, muted by the thick, wooden walls of the building. Smiling to himself (if he could have seen his own grin, he might have been horrified), he flung open the sliding door, and--

_Her_.

The color drained out of his face.

A part of his mind noted that everyone in the classroom was staring at him from where they all stood, clustered around that one desk. Clustered around _her_.

Her--it was impossible--it was impossible! He'd only skinned his palms, after all, so it hadn't been _real_--and suddenly he was falling, and someone was shouting (or was that him?) and as the ground tipped away everything blurred into black.

o o o

_He slid to the floor, the blood rushing from where he'd slit his neck, and the blood ran down his arm and drip-drip-dripped against the plastic floor and he looked up and saw--_

_And she was looking at him as his life drained away, sitting there in the other corner of the phonebooth, her legs bent underneath her as she looked, just _looked_, the expression on her face impossibly sad._

_Why was she so sad? Had something happened?_

_He took a deep breath--as deep as he could--and--_

o o o

Keiichi awoke to the sound of whispering.

"--delirious. It's probably a good idea for him to stay--"

"--didn't catch him on the way to school, and I--"

"--and just fell over. Probably why it took him so long--"

The sun was annoying bright, shining full-strength onto his face through the windows of the nurse's office. Keiichi squinted, and the world slowly swam into focus.

He turned his head, and stopped breathing.

They were there. They were all there.

Mion, making some sort of joke--probably at his expense. Rena, looking concerned for his well-being. Satoko laughing along with Mion as the nurse looked on disapprovingly. Rika, standing back and watching the rest of the group, as was her usual behavior.

And next to Rika--

He must have made some sort of noise, because the talking abruptly stopped, and all the faces turned to look at him.

"Hey!" Mion leaned over the bed to stare directly into his face, and he shrank back involuntarily. Mion didn't seem to notice, however. "Finally, you're awake, huh? Let me tell you, you caused a commotion _fainting_ in front of everyone in class, you know." He grinned wickedly down at him.

It was bait to another familiar argument, one that any other time Keiichi would have taken.

But not this time.

"You're dead…" he whispered.

"Eh, what?"

"I said--" And he pulled himself up, propping himself on his elbows. "you're dead--"

His voice was hoarse, but he said it loud enough that there was no way for any of them to miss it.

"Keiichi…" Rena, this time. "What do you mean--"

"I thought it was alright. I thought--it was only a little blood, right? But there was--there was--" He was incoherent now, just babbling, panicking. And even though he knew he wasn't making any sense, he tried to make them understand anyway.

"They all--I mean, you all…you died, and I thought there was a shot, and I died too…and there was--there was--"

There was _what_?

He might have remembered on his own if he'd had time to think, but the nurse had heard enough. Keiichi felt a cool hand at his forehead, and then something--someone--pushing him back down onto the bed. "He's still running a fever. Just leave him to me--go out and have some fun, alright?"

Some of the others seemed to want to argue, but reluctantly turned to leave anyway. All of them. Including--

No, that wasn't right. He had to tell them, warn them, because it was all going to happen again!

But he couldn't seem to raise his head. Every time he made it more than an inch off his pillow, that nurse--that damned nurse--was there to push him down. "You can't! You have to--" She pushed him down again. "I said that I would--I mean, there was--"

Again, 'there was'. There was--why couldn't he remember? He could remember everything leading to it just fine, but that one event--

"What was it…" That rush of adrenaline was finally wearing off, and he slumped against the bedsheet, unable to muster up the strength to protest further. "I remember…I mean, I have to remember…" He muttered to himself as his eyelids began to droop. "There was…"

o o o

"_Hey," he said._

_The words sounded distorted, coming from his mouth. A side effect of the blood loss, no doubt. It was becoming hard to move, hard to think._

"_Hey," he said again. This time, the girl seemed to notice him--notice he was looking at her. Of course he was looking at her. Why wouldn't he look at her?_

"_Why are you…" The question was lost in a cough, and he tried again. "Why are you looking…so sad, huh?"_

_The light was dimming, now. Had something happened? Had the power to the phonebooth been knocked out?_

"_Because everyone keeps dying."_

o o o_  
_

When he woke up hours later, the nurse was the only other person left in the schoolhouse.

He refused a ride home. More than anything, he needed to think--about his life, and their lives, and what he could remember now--and what if that had just a fever dream? He had been running a temperature, after all.

But no--it was much too vivid, much too real. And he'd _known_ things, even before he'd fallen sick. Hadn't he left his house with the image of his own death in his mind? And, even before he'd seen _that girl_--

The night air was cool against his skin. He could see his house, in the distance. He would be there soon.

'_Everyone keeps dying_,' she'd said. Just like everyone had died in that dream--vision--of his. Mion and Rena--

He could remember vividly--how it'd felt to hold the metal baseball bat in his hands. Swinging it overhead, smashing out the bedroom light. Bones snapping in two. Faces battered into twisted, deformed things. Blood.

Comprehension dawned.

He lurched forwards, fighting the urge to vomit.

On the edge of death, he'd been unable to follow her statements to their logical conclusion, but now that he was lucid (_arguable_, he thought), he realized what she'd meant.

It was his fault.

'_Everyone keeps dying_,' she'd said.

And he was the one who'd killed them all.

He decided it, right there, standing on the front steps. He would go home, have dinner, and go sleep, just as he had so many days in the past. And in the morning, he would lock the doors and refuse to come out. His mother and father wouldn't understand--they'd moved here for him, for his sake, after everything that had happened at his old school. But whatever they'd do or say--he could stand it. He could stand anything, if it was for the sake of his friends.

He'd never leave that place again.

Pyrrhic victory burning a bitter taste in his mouth, Keiichi reached out to the doorknob--and turned around.

_She_ was there.

He couldn't breathe.

And the last of a memory blossomed.

o o o

_He could hear her voice, a whisper. Like a breeze that you could only hear if you stood absolutely still and closed your eyes--_

"_Everyone keeps dying, and no matter what I do, it doesn't change."_

_She sounded so tired._

_He wanted, suddenly, to reach forwards, to wrap his arms around her and smile, to tell her it would all be okay. Everything would turn out fine. He'd make sure of it. He'd--_

_He couldn't do anything, could he?_

_He couldn't even lift his arms._

_But--_

"_I'll…do it."_

_It was difficult to make out anything, now, but he could see the girl, staring at him with something like surprise on her face._

"_I'll do it…I'll change it, so it's better."_

_She smiled, a sad, bitter smile._

"_Do you promise?"_

"_I…promise." He nodded--tried to nod, but he couldn't seem to lift his head. No matter. The last of the lights were going out, and she wouldn't have been able to see him nod in the darkness, anyway. He settled for reassuring her out loud instead._

"_I promi…"_

_And then the world faded away._

o o o

The final moments of that night that had never happened.

He understood, now, why that girl was here.

Keiichi bowed his head.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I couldn't keep my promise, last time."

It had been too late, then. By the time he had given his word, he had been too close to death to do anything.

No, that wasn't exactly right. That wasn't why he had broken his promise.

Mion and Rena had already died--been murdered, by his hand. That was why. And that was why he was prepared to duck into house and stay there, forever.

It was for their sakes.

But the girl said nothing, only looked at him, a strange intensity in her face that unnerved him.

"I'm going to keep it this time, honest!" Keiichi grasped desperately at his words, trying to find the right sentence that would avert the girl's terrible gaze. "I mean--I know what I have to do. I know how to fix it. I just have to stay inside--stay away from everybody else, and--"

"That's wrong."

For the first time, the girl spoke, cutting Keiichi off mid-speech--he flinched, almost biting his tongue.

He waited for her to continue, to explain what she meant--what had he done, this time around? Was even this effort doomed to failure?

A faint thunder rolled high above them. He paid it no heed.

"If you follow this course, everything will come to be as it has been, so many times before." She spoke almost regally, like someone who was above human beings.

Keiichi collapsed in upon himself, falling to his hands and knees in the dirt. Then, it was useless after all. No matter what he did, no matter what he tried--

"But you can still save them."

He lifted his head at her words. What? What had she said?

"What is needed," she continued, in that somehow commanding tone, "is someone to lead your friends. To lead them into battle against this terrible foe who has been responsible for this endless cycle of death." She stepped forwards, her eyes so impossibly steady that Keiichi could feel their sight on his body.

"Keiichi. Your friends need you."

Could it be…?

"Rika needs you. Mion and Rena need you. So do Shion and Satoko and all the rest of the people who live in this village."

He was afraid to hope.

"And…" She took another step forward, and suddenly she was no longer a god, only that lovely, lonely girl whom he had seen in his dreams. "I…also need you."

He stared into nothingness, trying to understand those words as they ran through his mind again and again and again and again. _I also need you_.

She needed…of all people, him?

"So…please, Keiichi."

Her voice shook.

"Please…please, say that you'll help me…"

_Help me._

A long silence passed, with neither of them saying anything. Finally, at last, Keiichi looked up.

"What do I have to do?" he asked.

And Hanyuu smiled.


End file.
